Some word transitions from direct to reported speech that will come in handy: He said he had trekked the Himalayas this time last year I had trekked the Himalayas this time last year She said that she had been walking near the beach She said she had gone to school that morning Just come back to this table after this section and use this as a summary table: Tense
This is a summary table that will be crystal clear to you as you read further. Learn more about Parts of Speech here in detail Reported speech- Play of the tenses: Direct speech tense Browse more Topics under Transformation Sentences But of the reporting verb is in the past tense, we do change the tense of the sentence. The tense doesn’t have to be changed in this case of reported speech. This sentence could also have been written as “She said she loves to play football.”)
(Note 1 : Assume a gender if not mentioned already. Reported speech: She said that she loves to play football. Whenever you report a speech there’s a reporting verb used like “say” or “tell”.